Transfigurations

Welcome to Transfigurations! This blog is intended to serve the orthodox Anglican community and the wider Christian community. We pray that all that is posted here will be faithful to the Scriptures as the inspired word of God, speak the truth in love, edify, bless and transform this local body of Christ, and be an impetus for revival, repentance, prayer and intercession!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Anglican Unscripted Episode 54

Oct 26, 2012In this weeks episode Kevin and George bring an update on the Diocese of South Carolina and their separation from the Episcopal Church. Also this week they talk about Women's Ordination and the new task force created by the Anglican Church in North America. And what episode would be complete without news from one of the broken Anglican "Instruments of Unity". Peter talks about the reality of Women Bishops in England and Allen Haley guildes the viewer thru the Kangaroos courts found in Title IV.A.S. Haley: What Is It about "Conflicts of Interest" that the Kangaroo Court Cannot Understand?
The term "kangaroo court" is a mid-nineteenth century Americanism that may have
hit its stride during the days of the Gold Rush, when rough and ready justice
was meted out on the spot in the mining camps and unorganized territories of
California. But its meaning has always been well-established, even if its etymology is not
clear: it refers to a rigged proceeding to deliver "justice" to some poor
victim or unlucky offender who has aroused the popular ire of the moment. The
judge is in on the script, the jury is stacked, and the victim generally does
not know what hit him until later, because the trial proceeds so fast.

In
such an atmosphere, the words "conflict of interest" have no meaning or
consequences. The jury foreman may be the judge's brother, and the prosecuting
attorney the judge's son. All they care about is railroading the defendant(s) as
quickly and thoroughly as they can -- and they have all the power in the
situation.

The current attempt to bring canonical charges against the
bishops (and, to date, one presbyter) who exercised their First Amendment rights
to offer testimony or legal argument to the courts in Illinois and Texas is a
case in point. In the Fort Worth case before the Texas Supreme Court, seven
bishops and three presbyters within the Episcopal Church (USA) filed a
"friend-of-the-court" (amicus) brief, which took the position that ECUSA
is not a three-tier hierarchy (1 - "national church"; 2 - diocese; 3 -
parish), but has a hierarchical relationship only between the bishop diocesan
and the resident clergy of any given diocese...

Scrolling around...October 27, 2012

Is voter fraud being committed in Ohio?
Two volunteer poll workers at an Ohio voting station told Human Events that they observed van loads of Ohio residents born in Somalia — the state is home to the second-largest Somali population in the United States — being driven to the voting station and guided by Democratic interpreters on the voting process. No Republican interpreters were present, according to these volunteers.

While it’s not unusual for get-out-the-vote groups to help voters get to the polls, the volunteers who talked to Human Events observed a number of troubling and questionable activities.

A source, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a volunteer outside the Morse Road polling center. She has witnessed Somalis who cannot speak English come to the polling center. They are brought in groups, by van or bus. The Democrats hand them a slate card and say, “vote Brown all the way down.” Given that Sherrod Brown is the incumbent Democrat Senator in Ohio, one can assume that this is the reference...

Nevertheless, the liberal media went into full apoplexy, painting Richard Mourdock as a woman-hating extremist with reprehensible views on an issue as serious as rape.

Almost none of those who quoted Mourdock in making these charges used the full quotation, much less the audio of its delivery in the debate. The full quote reveals that the candidate was affirming the full dignity of every human life, regardless of the circumstance of conception.

To their credit, some in the media saw through the controversy. Writing for The New Republic, Amy Sullivan made clear that she disagrees with Mourdock’s position, but she honestly explained his words, and she expressed disappointment in his treatment by many liberal commentators...

Pro-Lifers React to Obama Sex Ad: Practice Obama Abstinence
...“It is deeply disturbing that a father of two young girls could approve such a demeaning ad,” said Lila Rose of Live Action. “President Obama’s latest campaign ad is a desperate and an offensive stereotype. Again, his campaign reduces women and their concern of political issues to sex and birth control.”...

The latest example is a black and white ad, conceived and created by San Francisco ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners. You may not know the agency's name, but you certainly know their work. Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein are two of America's most highly respected ad men - the force behind the iconic "Got Milk?" campaign....

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Scrolling around... October 25, 2012

Hacking the President’s DNA
The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well—the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace...

Rebecca Edmonds was rejected from the Air Force and had her $92,000 scholarship revoked after she told her commanding officers she was pregnant, due to a policy against single moms. She has appealed and her case is under review...

Loyola Chicago to Host Drag Show
...Last year, the University defended the drag show to The Cardinal Newman Society. Maeve Kiley, Director of Communications at Loyola University said the university “encourages open discussion” and added that the Jesuit institution, “relishes the opportunity to engage ideas and different points of view.”...

Suit Challenges Utah College's Treatment Of Christian Student Group
In Utah yesterday, a federal lawsuit was filed against Utah's Snow College (a public 2-year college) by a Christian student group that claims a school policy unconstitutionally treats student groups affiliated with religious institutions differently than other student groups. The complaint (full text) in Solid Rock Christian Club v. Wyatt, (D UT, filed 10/22/2012) challenges both the rule that relegates to "affiliate" status student groups that are affiliated with commercial, for-profit or religious institutions, as well as limitations placed on plaintiffs' participation in the "Paint the Town" Homecoming activity. In the activity, student groups get to paint the windows of participating local businesses to reflect the Homecoming spirit-- with this year's theme being "Then, Now and Forever." School officials told Solid Rock Christian Club that it could not use religious symbols in the designs it painted on store windows...

The Category 2 storm, which has killed two in the Caribbean as it swept through Cuba and blew toward the Bahamas, may combine with other, rain-heavy weather systems to create what meteorologists are calling a "perfect storm" that could wreak havoc from North Carolina to Massachusetts early next week. Sandy will likely maintain its hurricane status as it passes over the Bahamas later Thursday and may bring tropical storm conditions along Florida’s southeastern coast by early Friday...image

"What is true is that trust is a very important part of the election," Pfeiffer, who said he had not yet seen the article, told reporters during Obama's campaign swing through Florida, Virginia and Ohio Thursday. "The president is someone who says what he means and does what he says, and Gov. Romney's answers in the debates on domestic issues and foreign policy raise real questions about that."...

Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Republican Mitt Romney has erased President Barack Obama's 16-point advantage among women, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. And the president, in turn, has largely eliminated Romney's edge among men.

Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47 percent of likely voters and Obama by 45 percent, a result within the poll's margin of sampling error, the survey shows....

Affluent suburbs swing to debate-tested Romney
...In addition, polling shows Romney ahead in Colorado, which Obama carried by 9 points last time, and the race closing in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which Obama carried by 14, 10 and 16 points, respectively...

Obama Privately Touts Sequester After Denying Responsibility in Debate...After loud complaints from new and mainstream media alike, the transcript of the President's interview with the Des Moines Register was made public today. Since these comments on the sequester represented a complete reversal of the position he took at the debate less than 24 hours earlier, it's easy to understand why the President's campaign initially wanted to keep them off the record...

Texas AG Tells International Election Monitors to Butt Out
The head of an international body that will monitor the U.S. elections next month protested to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday after Texas’ attorney-general warned that any international observer who approaches a polling station in the state risks criminal prosecution...

NYT: How Bill Clinton May Have Hurt the Obama Campaign
...But there is one crucial way in which the 42nd president may not have served the 44th quite as well. In these final weeks before the election, Mr. Clinton’s expert advice about how to beat Mitt Romney is starting to look suspect...

“I think many of the Democrats have [taken] Democrat Catholic votes for granted because they’ll go with them no matter what the party position might be on abortion,” Archbishop Chaput said. “That’s why the position of the Democrat Party has gotten worse, and worse, and worse as time goes on because Catholics haven’t abandoned them as they’ve moved in that direction.”

Chaput said that in the earliest days of the abortion debate in the United States, most people probably thought that the Republican Party would’ve “easily embraced abortion,” and that Democrats would have been the political party standing for the defense of life because of the large number of Catholics within the party...

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Granting that we are always in the presence of God...

Granting that we are always in the presence of God, yet it seems to me that those who pray are in His presence in a very different sense; for they, as it were, see that He is looking upon them, while others may be for days together without even once recollecting that God sees them. ...Teresa of Avilaimage by A. Sparrow

Panel of Reference report on the Fort Worth 7 finds misconduct

Panel recommends "conciliation" between the accused and the Episcopal Church
October 22, 2012
By George Conger

A Reference Panel has found that a prima facie case of misconduct can be made against nine serving and retired bishops of the Episcopal Church for having endorsed an amicus brief presented to the Texas Supreme Court, or for having given testimony in a trial court proceeding involving the Diocese of Quincy.

The Rt Rev. Peter H. Beckwith, the Rt Rev Maurice M. Benitez, the Rt Rev John W. Howe, the Rt Rev Paul E. Lambert, the Rt Rev William H. Love, the Rt Rev D. Bruce MacPherson, the Rt Rev Daniel H. Martins, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr, and the Rt Rev James M. Stanton have been informed the Reference Panel had reviewed the charges brought against them by the provisional bishops of Fort Worth and Quincy and by lay and clergy accusers. the rest

Canon law experts note the prosecution of the nine bishops has all the hallmarks of a political trial, as the actions for which they are accused are not considered “triable” when done by other bishops.

Romney’s Brilliant Maneuver
Gov. Mitt Romney today pulled a bold move in the final debate with President Obama, opting for relatively limited verbal combat with his opponent while instead showcasing his knowledge of foreign affairs, adopting a presidential demeanor, and offering a sense of optimism for the future...

Scrolling around...October 23, 2012

A War on Religion?
In today’s increasingly secular society, the threat to religious freedom comes not at the point of a sword, but from imposed values at odds with the truth that there is a Creator who has given us certain inalienable rights that government is supposed to secure, not supplant. People of faith in America may not be seeing squads of soldiers pounding on their doors in the dead of night, demanding that they renounce their faith or be dragged off. But they are being confronted by lawmakers, bureaucrats, regulators, human rights commissions, and even college deans demanding that they submit to so-called “neutral laws of general applicability” that venerate such concepts as toleration, non-discrimination, and “choice.”...

Pediatricians raise doubts about the benefits of organic foods
The nation’s leading group of pediatric doctors on Monday questioned the nutritional benefits of products of the booming $30 billion organic foods industry, raising doubts about the superiority of organic offerings for the second time in the past month.

While organic fruits, vegetables and meats do offer less exposure to potentially harmful pesticides and drug-resistant bacteria, the American Academy of Pediatrics found no evidence that proves those foods are safer to eat than conventional offerings...

Shortage of doctors spreading throughout US
...Nationwide, there is a shortage of more than 13,000 doctors, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that represents medical schools.

That shortfall is expected to grow 10-fold to 130,000 doctors within 12 years as the US population ages and 30 million more people are added to insurance rolls under the 2010 health-care law, the medical college association said...

Taxes go up in 2013 for 163 million workers
President Barack Obama isn't talking about it and neither is Mitt Romney. But come January, 163 million workers can expect to feel the pinch of a big tax increase regardless of who wins the election.

A temporary reduction in Social Security payroll taxes is due to expire at the end of the year and hardly anyone in Washington is pushing to extend it. Neither Obama nor Romney has proposed an extension, and it probably wouldn't get through Congress anyway, with lawmakers in both parties down on the idea...

Monday, October 22, 2012

Whatever man may stand...

Whatever man may stand, whatever he may do, to whatever he may apply his hand - in agriculture, in commerce, and in industry, or his mind, in the world of art, and science - he is, in whatsoever it may be, constantly standing before the face of God. He is employed in the service of his God. He has strictly to obey his God. And above all, he has to aim at the glory of his God. ...Abraham Kuyperimage by Bill Jacobus

A fox at Breckenridge...

October 22, 2012

Raymond and I are in Breckenridge, Colorado for a mini-vacation following the Christian Legal Society's annual convention which was in Colorado Springs this year. Raymond took this photo of this beautiful fox in the backyard of where we were staying.

Scrolling around...October 22, 2012

During the first two presidential debates, neither
Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney denied that Medicare's upside-down accounting has
put the program on a path toward bankruptcy, but, not surprisingly, each had a
very different vision on how we keep our promise to America's seniors. And the
differences in those visions matter...

Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion...

Elderly Widow Told Not to Pray in Public Housing Complex
A widow who lives in a Minnesota apartment complex funded by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development was told that she could not pray, read her Bible or have private discussions of a religious nature in the commons area of the complex...

Obamacare Mandate: Anyone Who Works 30-Hour Week Is Now 'Full-Time'
A little-known section in the ObamaCare health reform law defines “full-time” work as averaging only 30 hours per week, a definition that will affect some employers who utilize part-time workers to trim the cost of complying with the ObamaCare rule that says businesses with 50 or more workers must provide health insurance or pay a fine...

Powerful Video Documents 14 Botched Abortions at Planned Parenthood
A powerful new video documents the botched abortions 14 women suffered at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics since January 2011. While the number of botched abortions is likely much higher, the video chronicles 14 of them that pro-life advocates outside the abortion clinics captured on tape...

A Red Carpet for Radicals at the White House
A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists...

First, the country is in very bad shape. The difficulties are enormous, and no one who fills up a tank of gas or watches even a bit of news doubts it. This situation compels the independents and even many Democrats, perhaps privately in the latter case, to pull the lever for Romney.

Second, Mitt Romney is a very good man, and the past two weeks have put that reality on display for everyone who cares to notice to see.

A very good man, and the country wants that right now. They want to trust that someone with great skills also has the great character necessary to ask the country to do hard and complicated things, and the intelligence to choose among many competing proposals on how best to chart a course back to prosperity and security...

Mitt Romney and the Rise of Practicalism
In the first debate, Romney conveyed that he understands the very concept of compromise means not everyone at the bargaining table gets what they want -- that’s not the goal. The goal is to achieve the best possible outcome in confronting a given issue -- actually solving a problem while giving everyone something they can take home as a win.

This is the kind of president this country needs right now. We don’t need vague slogans like “Forward” or “Change you can believe it.”

We need a person who knows what it’s like to look across the table at someone with a different viewpoint and a contrasting agenda -- and yet somehow have the temperament and skill to forge a mutually agreeable conclusion...